> In general on dating apps, women are funneling people to their instagram profile to ignore them. If you have a popular account its a night and day difference.
1. Is Y really a behavior exclusive to group X?
2. Is behavior Y fair to generalize across members of group X?
3. Is outcome Z the intended purpose of behavior Y, or is a side-effect that someone might take painfully?
For example, the sentiment of “In general on dating apps, women are funneling people to their instagram profile to ignore them” might read like at best someone low-key thinks women owe others attention.
Using a dating profile to promote another social media profile is something any attractive person might reasonably consider, and (barring some extraordinary looks, etc.) reaching out to them from a social profile with a lot of clout could be a way to get attention—clout likely being what that person respects, as they themselves are purposefully trying to acquire it.
It is not language that hurts, it is what behind it. I see nothing wrong behind original sentence. In yours I feel lie - there is something shameful, something that can't be said.
Also you've changed "dating apps users" to "any attractive person" which is awful judgement. Population versus gamers of one particular style.
This style strongly reminds me of George Orwells "Politics and the English Language" (1946), I hope it will not live.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
I also ignore my LinkedIn, but I would not mind it being popular just in case I lose all existing customers and need a gig for whatever reason.
With that in mind, imagine I link to my LinkedIn from my Instagram (let’s imagine my Instagram is very popular), and then see some tired headhunter tweeting “In general on Instagram, software engineers are funneling recruiters to their LinkedIn profile to ignore them”.
Whoever wrote that would come across as a needy, frustrated, and possibly as someone who thinks I’m obligated to respond to their messages; but until recruiters start to ambush us engineers in dark alleys I’m not going to worry much about that claim, even though it’s factually incorrect.
Now, that scenario becomes a bit more charged with a claim that plays to gender stereotypes and generalizes across a group with a history of discrimination and violence against.
> I see nothing wrong behind original sentence.
I will rephrase.
The original sentence, addressed to a group of supposedly mostly men, attributes scheming or malicious intent (“funnel to ignore”) to something that women do.
The wrongness of it is akin to the wrongness of a broke person saying that Apple with its ads “funnels people into stores to withhold shiny gadgets from them”. (Apple is not the only company that advertises; that’s not why it advertises; etc.)
The difference is, in our culture as it is now Apple can’t possibly take damage from such a statement, while women regularly suffer violence from men. Why add fuel to this fire if you can express the same idea without?
(EDIT: rephrased.)
I don't understand what's going on with gender speech.
No matter how I want I can't give birth to baby. Not carry, not breastfeed. This results in different roles in hunter-gatherer society, optimized in genes throughout millennia.
We should have same rights but we can't expect same results. We have different stats, we have different brains (hormones whatever). Even children. Boys compete a lot and are in material science. Girls builds groups. It is awesome to watch. Like girls emotional intellect on average is much higher. And boys EQ is much dumber.
I believe I can say this. But for some reason in games based on EQ... no, we should be equal.
I dance salsa. It is very asymmetric social dance. Man and woman have very distinct roles and we enjoy it a lot. Woman waits for invitation, man can invite, woman can reject. Thus balance is formed. Each dance starts with mini game - invite the one who wants to dance with you. And it is all just for fun. Also men are not expected to reject. I've seen woman inviting men on each dance, that ends badly - exploitation of rules - loss of goodwill. A month later noone invites her, rejected by society. Hope it shows that "ignore" is not bad in some cultures.
We should grew respect to who we are and each other. Accept strong and weak sides. That is the best antidote against unreasonable expectations.
Sorry, but I think your understanding is just a reflection of yourself.
More accurate and neutral rewrite would be speech from personal experience:
> Woman I've contacted on dating apps overwhelmingly respond to popular account, otherwise ignore.
Like nothing changed at all. No excuses, no expectations just naked truth. That's how it should be read.
So your counterfactual claim is that if statements about about women "scheming" didn't exist, violence against women would be lower? That seems like a pretty strong causal claim when all we have is correlative data.
It could simply be that the people who are violent against women start and perpetuate such statements, rather than that such statements causes people to be violent towards women.
I believe that (A) discovering what is considered normal in one’s community influences what one thinks, and (B) what one thinks is not disconnected from what one does.
The trap of entitlement is easy to fall into, and if a statement can be interpreted in a way that implies you are owed something and deprived of it by a group who can provide it (that group already having reasons to fear violence from your own group) then I oppose the wording.
The existence of such a statement in vacuum does not matter, the trouble starts when it is published in a community. Bonus points if it’s mentioned casually in passing, implying it’s nothing out of ordinary. Bonus points if it goes by unopposed by the community (thankfully, not on HN).
Someone in the community may have their existing line of thinking reinforced. Someone else, who does not have an established opinion on this matter but is going through a difficult period in life (which during formative years or early adulthood is not uncommonly associated with lack of intimate relationships), may start considering this idea for the first time.
Start feeling belonging to a group where this is normal, and a feedback loop may be formed with horrible publicized outcomes[0] and not unlikely many cases we don’t know about.
If you believe that there is no causal link between those outcomes and perpetrators being able to discover communities where relevant opinions were considered normal, then we disagree and I hope you eventually change your mind.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel#2010s
To be clear, this may not even be purposeful. We may not phrase things carefully at all times, and in some cases casual accidental phrasing can imply things we did not actively consider before. Being aware helps.
It hasn't been considered "normal" to inflict violence on women for decades, so that's not really the context under discussion. The question is, under present circumstances in which domestic violence is a huge no-no, and everyone knows it's unacceptable, would the absence of comments about "scheming women" really prevent or reduce such violence?
Frankly, that's a tough sell.
In many (most?) parts of the world, for a woman walking alone after dark to see a group of men approaching often means to fear for her safety or life; in domestic conflicts women take much, much more damage from men than the reverse, the statistics are readily available.
If you consider “I don’t think it’s normal, so I don’t care what others say or write” a viable position in this context, then we disagree and I hope you will change your mind.
Generalizations, misattribution of intent and other biases against a disadvantaged group may exist in someone’s head, but when vocally expressed in a community they have the power to exacerbate an already difficult situation; especially if the majority of said community belongs to the very group that historically caused the disadvantage of the former group. (This is not limited to men vs. women or gender in general.)
It is worth phrasing things in a neutral way, even if it takes more words.
You're confusing cause and effect, which was my initial point. If those objectionable statements did not previously exist, incels and others would create them. This is why policing language is stupid. It's a symptom not a cause, and focusing on the language as the problem also punishes people who would never abuse another person.
Comedians run into this wall all the time. No one's going to hear a racy joke and then think it's suddenly ok to go assault someone. Even if someone were contemplating assault, the joke wouldn't be some "final straw" that drives them to do it, and trying to classify it as such simply ignores the real underlying issues.
The language one uses cannot influence the mindset of another person? Providing avenues to advocate for certain behavior should not be expected to increase the incidence of that behavior?
Then we have disagreed back here:
> I believe that (A) discovering what is considered normal in one’s community influences what one thinks, and (B) what one thinks is not disconnected from what one does.
and we will continue disagreeing.
I hope eventually you will change your mind, but I’m not prepared to (nor expecting to be able to) argue you into that.
people passively grow their instagrams and don't have any interest in checking their messages
the behavior I actually navigate is completely outside of the dating apps
I see the billboard (on the dating app) and found a way to get to the top of their inbox for quality time (outside of the dating app). Never even attempting to "match with them" on the dating app. The other side of the control group is an experience of what happens when a normal bloke tries messaging them on instagram: absolutely nothing